Thing #23: Evaluation

Well, I've made it to the end. This has been a good learning experience. Sometimes a little frustrating, and sometimes not very fruitful, but I suppose that is part of the learning process as well. I now have 7 new apps on my iPad and 1 new app on my Android phone that I can see using again in the future (whether regularly or sporadically) as a result of participating in 23 mobile things. These apps (and thus the ones I've found the most useful) are:
-Road Ninja
-Apps Gone Free
-Temple Run
-Instagram
-Color Splurge
-Pinterest
-Quick Office
-Google
If another similar program were offered again in the future, I would definitely participate. I sometimes struggle to find Continuing Education opportunities as a) unfortunately, CE often drops to the bottom of my to-do list and b) It can be difficult for me to leave the building to take advantage of CE opportunities. So this kind of self paced, online opportunity is ideal. Thanks to all who helped put this together!

Thing #20: Games (Temple Run)

Mobile App games are wonderful for killing time.... And I'd just recently been thinking that I'd like to find some new ones to try, as the ones I typically play are getting a bit boring for me. Enter Temple Run. Easy enough concept, but in practice something that keeps you coming back because you're frustrated that you'd like to make it a little longer than the time you did before. A perfect recipe for addiction.... :) So yes, I think I'll be playing this one for the foreseeable future.

Thing # 22: Discovering Apps (Apps Gone Free)

Apps Gone Free is a very easy way to discover new apps. The interface is very user friendly, and its very simple to go from this app to the App Store to actually download and install the app. My only suggestions would be:
a) It would be nice if there was a way to search or browse by category or something similar. Browsing by each date is a little tedious when you're looking for a specific kind of app
b) I found several cases (mostly in the apps featured further back) where the Apps Gone Free information stated that the app was indeed still free (wasn't marked as Expired as some of the others) but then when I went over to the App store, the app was not free. I'm sure this information is ever changing, so its hard to keep it up to date, but.....
Overall though, Apps Gone Free is useful and something that I see myself taking advantage of in the future.

Thing 21: Free for All (Out of Milk)

I think in an earlier post there was an opportunity to explore list making apps, but I was disappointed with the ones featured. The grocery list making app that I've used for quite some time now - and really enjoy is called Out of Milk. I particularly like it as a girl-on-a-librarian-salary budget, as it has a feature that allows you to enter the cost of items as you go and it will keep a running total of the cost of all items. Very helpful for avoiding sticker shock in the check out lane. I know it is available for Android, and by searching the app store, I see it's available for Apple as well. I'd highly recommend it.

Thing # 19: Hobbies (Vivino Wine Scanner)

This app was easy enough to use. It actually gave me the option to try it without creating an account which I like (see previous gripe). I didn't have a bottle of wine in front of me to scan the UPC, but the search function was easy enough. I liked the reviews and the information it had about each type of wine. I do wish it had an Amazon type "if you liked this wine, try these" feature - as I often struggle to pick out wines (and often choose the same 2-3).

Thing #18: Education (Bill Nye the Science Guy)

I LOVED Bill Nye as a young person. I'm sad that it's not on TV anymore (though I know there are DVDs around) so I was excited when I saw this app. Unfortunately, I wasn't super impressed. Maybe it takes an 8 year old mentality to enjoy it.... I guess I was looking at this app through the lens of "would my three year old nephew enjoy it and be able to do it independently." Heck, some of the things I wasn't able to do independently! :)  I think my nephew would enjoy it - particularly the game with the planets. The mechanics of the game just weren't quite age appropriate for a 3 year old. So, while I can see the value of this app, I think its one I'll be deleting from my iPad.

Thing #17: Connecting to Community (Go Southeast MN)

Going into looking at this app, I was very excited about it. I'm not originally from this area (I am from South Central MN) and so I often get into a rut as to things to do (particularly low cost - or no cost - options) with my friends. However, I was very disappointed. I couldn't figure out this app. I couldn't get it to do anything, get any results, etc. Perhaps it would help if I used it on a tablet (as opposed to my small screened smart phone) - but this app is only for Android, and I only have an iPad.... I don't know. I'm at a loss.

Thing # 16: Audio (Sound Cloud)

I apologize if I've already griped about this, but I'm not a huge fan of things that make you create an account  which is true with Sound Cloud - if you're not sure if you're going to use them long-term -. Yes, there's the option to sign in with Facebook, but I try to avoid that as well. Okay, gripe over. Now onto the app. :)

The app is easy enough to use. Has a user friendly search function and so forth and I did find some rather interesting things. I briefly tried out the recording function as well, which was also user friendly. The microphone on my iPad is rather user friendly - it captured our exterior door slamming, a good 20 ft or so away. So, yes, a thumbs up for Sound Cloud

Thing #15: Infographics (Infographics Hub)

Infographics Hub - as far as I can tell - only allows you to browse and use infographics. I found a lot of interesting graphics. Everything from Santa's Insurance Expenses to Hangover Cures from Around the World and everything in between. I was hoping to find some library specific ones - and there probably are some nestled into some of the categories. I wish there was the option to search when you're viewing all infographics. There is that option when you're in specific categories, but when i searched for "library" in categories that seemed logical (education, technology, web, miscellaneous) I didn't come up with any results. I'd also like to figure out how to create infographics. I'll have to explore some other apps in this thing some other time.

Thing # 14: Videos (Magisto)

So, I was really excited to finally try out Vine, but then I couldn't find it in the App Store on my iPad.... So, Magisto it is! I first watched a few videos that were already on the app, just to see some examples. I really liked some of the effects. Then, I decided to try it out. I don't have hardly any photos on my iPad so that's obviously going to affect the quality of the final product. But the creation process was super simple. Select photos, select a theme, select music - and that's all there was to it. And the finished product (given again, that I only had 5 photos) was pretty impressive. I would definitely use this app again!

Thing # 13: Presentations (Deck Slideshow Presentations)

I was skeptical as to how well it was going to work to create a presentation - seeing as how I'm using my smartphone at the moment. Obviously, were I actually going to accomplish this task, I'd make sure I have the tools I needed (ie either a tablet or computer). However, I was pleasantly surprised how user friendly the Deck Slideshow Presenation app was. There were many great pre-made themes and it was easy to export for use on PowerPoint on a computer (though the animations did not transfer). It was however, a little cumbersome as far as adding text and rearranging it; though even that, I'm sure if I spent more time with it, that would become intuitive as well.

Thing #12: Books, Books, and More Books (Audiobooks App)

For this thing, I decided to try out the Audiobooks App. It is very user friendly and seems to have lots of titles - though, as comes with the territory with free audiobooks, none seemed to be best sellers or recent publications. I did appreciate that these were streaming (instead of taking the time to download the audiobooks), though on the flipside I can see some situations (ie on an airplane with no access to a data network) where streaming would not be ideal. As far as the narration quality, again - beggers can't be choosers. Thus I can't expect someone like Jim Dale to be narrating free audiobooks. But those that I listened to snippets of seemed to be good enough.

Thing #11: Library and Reference (ELM Mobile)

I really appreciated how mobile friendly the mobile version of ELM's website is (particularly since I don't have my iPad with me at the moment and so am using my smartphone). I've definitely been on some websites that AREN'T mobile friendly, so I greatly appreciate the thought, design, and user friendliness that went into the ELM mobile site. One drawback to the more streamlined approach of the ELM Mobile site is that it (obviously) doesn't have all of the features of the full site. One feature missing that I use frequently when using ELM is the A-Z publication list. Granted, this feature would probably be cumbersome to use on a mobile site (particularly on the small screen of my smart phone). It's just usually my starting point when I use ELM.

Thing #10: Sharing Photos (Instagram)

Alright, one more, and then I think my brain has done all the app exploring it can handle for today....
I had a hard time deciding which app to explore for this category, as both SnapChat and Instagram are apps my friends have been talking a lot about/using. But as I don't take a ton of pictures, I really haven't had a strong desire/reason to use them. I ended up deciding to explore Instagram, as SnapChat really seems pointless to me.
At first, when I searched for Instagram in the App Store, I couldn't find it....which is odd because I know it exists. So, I used the Google Search app I installed earlier today to do a web search, and install it from there, which worked like a charm.
I do really like the social aspect of Instagram, as I said, I'm not a huge photo taker, but do enjoy looking at other people's photos. And very few of the photos that were posted on Instagram were also on Facebook. The photo taking/sharing process was also very easy to use. So if I took more photos, I can definitely see myself using this app!

Thing # 9: Taking and Editing Photos (Color Splurge)

This app was very enjoyable to experiment with. The whole "recoloring" areas of a photo that had been grayed out brought me back to those magic paint books that would magically make color appear on certain areas of the page.
At first I did have some technical issues with this app. It unexpectedly closed on my a couple of times. But one I "started a new project" by taking a photo and then editing it, those issues seemed to stop.
I'm not sure how much I will use this app on a day to day basis, but as I said, it was fun to experiment with. Perhaps I can show it to my 3 year old nephew - I bet he would find it enjoyable as well.

Thing #8: Social Media Management Tools (FriendCaster)

My thoughts on FriendCaster.... the info on the 23 Mobile Things Blog said "It has many of the same features as the Facebook app, but you may find it easier to use." Not sure if it's easier to use or not.... I guess it's just different..... Things are in different places, etc. I will say that the home screen has a more streamlined look. But I compared my news feed in FriendCaster to my newsfeed in the Facebook app and there were news items that weren't in my feed in FriendCaster...... So I guess that makes me a little leery that Friendster is an easier to use substitute for the Facebook App.

Thing #7: Content Sharing and Saving (Bitly...er Pinterest)

So my intent was to explore Bitly (as I already feel like I have a good grasp on Pinterest). However, when I searched for this app in both the App Store and iTunes store on my iPad, I couldn't find it. So.... Pinterest it is. A lot of my friends rave about how much time they spend/waste on Pinterest, and I just don't see the draw....I don't know if it's because I'm not crafty or interested in crafts.... or really don't have much in the way of hobbies that I could discover new information on Pinterest. But, I'm giving it another look/try for the sake of this learning experience. And, it grew on me, a bit. There is definitely lots of information, and it's interesting to see what intriguing things my friends have found. Maybe I'll become a Pinterest user after all... Maybe....

Thing #6: Creating and Editing Docs (QuickOffice)

Creating and editing documents is something I've always considered that I'd primarily do on a laptop or desktop. Primarily because if I'm going to be doing a lot of typing, I don't really want to use the onscreen keyboard. I realize I could solve this by getting a wireless keyboard of sorts.... Anyhou, being able to do quick edits on a document without having to lug my laptop around would be handy. But since I store most of my documents on a flash drive, and my iPad obviously doesn't have any USB ports, that would be a roadblock as well. I do have a Google Drive acct set up....
Anyhou, on to QuickOffice.... I can definitely see the usefullness of this for quick editing. Example: earlier this week I was meeting with several other area library directors to review/edit a draft of a PowerPoint presentation we are doing to our County Board in April. We wanted to be able to edit as we were talking so that one of us didn't have to do so once the meeting concluded and we returned to our libraries. It was a lunch meeting, so we met at an restaurant. I brought my laptop along, and it was a bit cumbersome to pass that around etc. Using a tablet instead would have been a better solution.
So, QuickOffice made the cut and will be staying on my iPad.

Thing #5: Notetaking (Remember the Milk)

I have a grocery list app that I use regularly on my Android Phone (Out of Milk), so I was interested to see how the functionality of Remember the Milk compared to that. Right off the bat, I wasn't a fan that I had to create an account.... I realize there are probably benefits I get from creating an account.... Then, I realized that my notion going into this was wrong. This isn't a grocery list app (Though I guess you COULD use it that way). It's a to do list app. And this, I really don't have a ton of usefulness for..... Except in times where I have LOTS of balls up in the air and things to do, I'm typically not a to do list person. And when I do make a to do list, I guess I'm old school in that I do it on paper. So, another app I'll likely delete as soon as I finish this post.

Thing #4: Keeping Up (Zite)

I'm not a person that reads a lot of news/blogs, etc online, so an app like Zite doesn't have a whole lot of usefullnes to me. I get my news from TV, the radio, and yes Facebook. 

And just functionally, I found Zite rather clunky and overwhelming. I know the idea of the tiles was to look like a newspaper or magazine, but I guess I'd prefer something more like a "news feed" that is just a list of articles/posts, etc.

So needless to say, I'll be deleting Zite as soon as I finish this blog post.

Thing #3 - Utilities (Google Search)

I chose to explore the Google Search app - mostly since I've been seeing a number of TV commercials about it lately. Though even as I chose it and was downloading it, I wasn't sure how useful I would find it. I typically just open up Safari on my iPad and use its search feature, and it works just fine. However, because Google is just in general a more robust search engine, this app does provide more than the one in Safari. Things like images, vidoes, news, blogs, etc.

So.... this skeptic may have just turned into a believer! :)

Thing #2 - Tips and Tricks

I tried out & found the following tips/tricks helpful for my iPad:
- Closing Apps: Never knew that just hitting the home screen wasn't closing an app..... I had like 20 apps open! It didn't seem to be affecting the speed of my iPad, but it just seems like a good thing to actually close apps...
- Turning off notifications - Most of the apps I use are purely for entertainment, so I really don't need to receive notifications from them. Now, I no longer will :)
- Tips to extend battery life: I've noticed that my battery life seems to drain more quickly than I think it should, so hopefully the setting changes I made will help that

Thing 1

What do I hope to learn from 23 Mobile Things.... I know this is very obvious and generic, but I am really hoping to expand my knowledge of apps and types of apps. I tend to be a person that has my 5-8 apps that I use on a regular basis, and doesn't really search out new apps too often (except when I'm waiting in say the doctor's office and look for new game apps to download). So I'm looking to spread my wings and expand my horizons. (wow -are there enough cliches in this post yet?) Onward and upward!!